The Pickens Plan: For those who would like to become an active participant in a solution for our nations energy needs I urge you to join with T.Boone Pickens in his quest for a cleaner planet through alternative energy.
Also see Green Wave Energy: Green Wave was founded by Mark Holmes and was formulated for viable alternative energy solutions. Green Wave Energy is promoting state-of-the-art energy-saving products and services throughout the country.
Green Wave Energy understands alternative energy technology will become “main stream” when
Call 949.645.1701 for information on how Green Wave Energy can help you save the planet.
Alternative EnergySource: David Apperson
url: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/alternative-energy
i can't beleive it. i have been waiting for this election for a month(actully i thought it would never happen) all i can say is GO BARACK OBAMA!
i really don't know why that is interesting.
so here we are: one day remaining. doesn't seem too long ago that i kept catching glimpses of this obama fellow in 2007 and thought how wonderful would it be... never expecting him to come this far up against edwards and clinton. as i have said before, from a marketing perspective, gaining a significant share of the market (in this case: eligible voters) is complicated in today's environment. any start-up firm would be hard pressed to snatch away a significant portion of p&g or coca cola customers. that same start-up firm would exemplify modern brilliance should it manage to overtake the market and gain control for any period of time. that is, in essence, what obama did in 2008. i recognized his potential. i praised his marketing campaign. yet, until super tuesday, i remained unconvinced that obama would succeed at becoming the nominee and beat the two well-established brands of edwards and clinton. once we knew obama was our nominee, i often joked that the only way mccain stood a chance against obama was by selecting a female running mate. i certainly did not mean "that one." when mccain announced palin in dayton, i first cringed. then i googled her investigation to confirm that she had been exhonerated. to my surprise, his popular governor from alaska was still under investigation for abuse of power and likely guilty as hell. was the crime all that bad? not really. yet, just as getting a blow job or sticking a cigar in your chubby aide's kootch is not that bad... when you lie repeatedly and attempt to disguise your blunder... that is often far worse than the original crime. what people i have met and people like palin do not seem to understand, many of us are forgiving of a mistake or two... just not the pattern of lies or unfaithfulness that accompanies deception. its the compulsiveness, the ease, and the noticeable pattern that deteriorates and ultimately destroys trust.needless to say, prior to the veep picks, i began imagining an electoral map in 2008 that mimics the map ross perot carved out for bill clinton in 1992. while initially i was nervous to see what became of clinton's stalwart supporters of which,in exit polls, many had proudly proclaimed gender as major factor in their support. however, with time, palin did backfire in the sense that she was ineffective at luring independents and former clinton voters. arguably, i assert that palin has been effective in igniting the base to match the sweat behind obama. only tomorrow will we know whether the fire palin lit in the far right-wing nuts of our country is burning strong or whether it turns out to be like a rash between your legs after a good date gone bad.to refresh your memory, review the electoral map in 1992 where clinton pulled out a huge upset against the incumbent thanks to ross perot who remains the only successful third party candidate in modern elections.
first states i would point our are louisiana, kentucky, and tennessee. i knew this summer that those states were outside the realm of possibility. in fact, tennessee turned against gore in 2000 largely due to his environmental convictions. given that bobby jindal is about as far too the right as sarah palin, i assumed louisiana was also outside the realm of possibility despite the outcome in the primary in obama's favor. and kentucky... well that ole kentucky home is a thorn in my side, but i will defend her natural beauty until my dying day... just not the folks' politics. ross perot's impressive 18% popular vote splintered the would-be republican votes and carved out a victory for bill clinton in additional states that stay with mccain: arkansas, montana, and west virgnina. while its true that mccain's lead in arkansas is presently only in single digits, i was always hopeful that with help from bill and hillary, obama would remain more competitive as far south as arkansas. like kentucky, west virginia seems to be very confused as to who has their best interest at heart. and, i might as well say it within this blog since i had to slam a door on my fingers a few weeks ago when i thought about writing a blog strictly targeting the separation of church and state. for those of you who forgot, we are suppose to acknowledge a separation of church and state! separation of church and state is among the founding principles of the united states of america. heads up people! when we fail to pratice our civil duties and vote for the best qualified leader to restore economic and foriegn matters because we want a candidate that agrees with the majority of our religious doctrine... hello... that is how you end up with george w. bush twice and the deteriorated condition of our country today. vote for the best candidate. don't vote based on religious convictions. if we transfer our country's power and wealth to china, russia. or the middle east... you may not have always have the freedom to practice that religion you love so much and wanted to shove down my throat. obama appears to be strongly competing to win with an electoral map much like bill clinton's first win. the difference, and what makes this especially remarkable, obama will accomplish this without a strong third party candidate which means he is winning with a more united country and a greater percentage or the popular vote. a percentage not seen since the eighties. obama's net reduction would be 39 electoral votes after losing these five states which is still enough to make him the victor tomorrow. however, obama will likely and hopefully pick up states that even bill clinton could not win in 1992. according to new sources such as real clear politics, abc and msnbc news, toss up states include: montana, indiana, missouri, north carolina, ohio, georgia, virginia, and florida. the other three that are sometimes considered a toss-up are: nevada, north dakota, and arizona. however, i am relatively confident that nevada will break for obama and north dakota and arizona will break for mccain... albiet narrow victories no matter what the outcome. with that said, my electoral predicions for tomorrow night:
given the nature of a predicion, i have to make a few tough calls and my map is admitedly optimistic in the sense that i really want obama to win in north carolina and georgia and prevent mccain from narrowly squeaking by him. since the beginning of the summer, i have envisioned a 1992 map where obama gave up four or five states and replaced them florida, virginia, and georgia which is a net 51 electoral votes. the end result would be a few less states, but a greater electoral and popular vote win on election day for barack. based on a series of recent polls and early voting results, i feel good about viginia and florida. i may still be overly optimistic about georgia, but it now looks like obama has an equally optimistic chance in north carolina so i moved both to obama's column. if you read my earlier blog during the primaries, i liked to mention obama's performance in north and south carolina. he alone, had more votes cast for him than mccain and his republican counterparts combined. early voting and polls show the margin in the general election tight in south carolina while virtually tied and potentially leaning to obama in north carolina. amazing! as for georgia, a relatively strong third party candidate in georgia, bob barr, could "help" tip that state to obama like ross perot did in 1992. barr polled around 8% this spring, but third party candidates generally poll better early than the final outcome because more and more voters fold into the two major parties. presently, "other" in georgia is at 4% and bob barr, a georgian, is believed to compose the majority of that 4% or better... as he has been gaining in the polls this last few weeks by picking up undecided georgia independents.last week's cnn/time poll revealed that among "likely" georgia voters — presumably those who are both registered and have a proven track record of participating in elections, the race breaks down as follows: mccain: 50%, obama: 46%, barr: 3%
however, if the pool of voters is widened to include simply registered voters — which would include first-time voters or those who rarely participate in general elections — then the georgia vote shifts in obama's favor: mccain: 46%, obama: 49%, barr: 4%
so there you have it, i was dissappointed when the obama for america campaign shifted resourced from georgia last month, but happy to hear that more than half of registered voters have voted early thought to benefit obama. i was also happy when obama shifted resources back to georgia last week and may help see my wish to fruition.
what of my other swing state calls? montana is close. originally, that state looked good for obama, but slipped back to mccain after the palin pick. perhaps montana is the one state that palin helps mccain win. yet, we are squabbling over three electoral votes and i my calculations are that obama will succeed with or without montana. i call montana for mccain because the last month's series of polls generally have mccain leading in spite of that gap closing and now close. the same is true of arizona. i was in arizona in may. i kept asking people i met, and i gathered that if mccain was not from arizona, the state would go blue. yet, i see arizona staying narrowly red. meanwhile, long before the pundits and major shift in the polls, i have felt confident that obama would perform better in florida than ohio which was not the case for bill clinton in 1992. however, like nevada, florida's economy is hurting and unlike mccain who hosted a convention centered around terrorism... i have long thought the economy is the greatest security risk facing our country. i trust that florida agrees and i will take back every sand bar comment i've made since 2000.
ultimately, i call ohio for obama... but i predict ohio to be too close to call until after the west coast polls are closed. additionally, for the same reason i foresee ohio ending close, i also see indiana close. however, i see indiana narrowly red for mccain. unlike missiouri, indiana's popular senator is somewhat a bore and moderate. indiana reminds me of northern kentucky democrats. in order to win, you have to market yourself as a virtual republican. with that said and given that indiana did not break for clinton with perot's help, i call indiana for mccain and i call missiouri for obama... home of the likable, well-known, and early obama activist, senator claire mccaskill. if she ran for governor first, she could be president in 2016, eh?
end game: obama with 379 electoral votes. the greatest victory since the eighties. and incidentally, i alway hinted he would prove to be our next great american president. finally, i win a contest... by virtue of association or vicariously or something like that.
To all Barack Obama Donors,
As donors to the Campaign for Change we have all contributed towards the largest movement in this nation's history. We have invigorated the people of this nation to stand up for something different, to stand up to the Status Quo; to stand up for the change this nation needs so badly. We come from all over this nation; we are rich and poor, we are blue collar and white collar, we are from the North and the South; East and West. As American Patriots we have come together in support of a great man who is ready to lead this nation. Barack Obama has inspired us all; he has lifted our hopes and has promised us a bright future.
However, there are those who are trying to discredit us. Those who are trying to say that this movement wasn't created by the people, but instead by special interests. Last night, John McCain went on Larry King and one of the first topics of discussion was how Barack Obama has raised money for his campaign for change. This is what he had to say:
"What has happened now is that there are hundreds of millions of dollars that are undocumented credit cards. And we don't know where they came from; we don't know who contributed it. [...] And so we don't know who those donors are. Their response will be, oh, well, they're just small donors. We don't know that. We don't know that, because they're undocumented." - John McCain, October 29, 2008.
All of Barack Obama's donors have filled out applications with their donations. Its an application which I have filled out on three separate occasions. As a documented small donor, I know where and how this Campaign for Change has raised its money. I feel that it is time that we tell John McCain where that money came from.
This is what I propose. We, as small donors to the Barack Obama Campaign for Change should contact John McCain and let him know who we are. We should tell him where we are from and what we do for a living. We must do this in an entirely positive fashion; simply in an attempt to tell the McCain campaign that we are real and we are proud.
Here is a script which I prepared for this:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Hello, my name is ______________. I'm _____ years old and I live in _____________________. I work for _____________. I heard, during an interview with Larry King, John McCain express some confusion as to where and how Barack Obama raised his money. I just wanted to help clear things up. I am a Barack Obama Campaign for Change small donor. I have donated ____ times with a total of $_______ dollars. I donated to Barack Obama's campaign because _____________________________.
Thank you for your time; have a nice day.
Here is John McCain's campaign contact information:
Phone: (703) 418-2008 - Press 6 to leave a message in the General Mail Box
Lets make our presence known and tell John McCain who we are. We aren't part of a Washington Conspiracy and I refuse to let my donation be used against a candidate who stands for a different kind of Politics. A candidate who stands for empowering the people and bringing common sense policy back to the White House.
Join with me and other Barack Obama donors and contact John McCain's campaign. Its a simple gesture that should only take 5 minutes of your time. Thank you and God Speed. Lets stay fired up and ready to go! Remember, forward this blog post to every Barack Obama donor you know. I'm not a fan of Chain E-mail but for this to take its effect everyone of us must participate.
Tim Patrick
A Small donor to Barack Obama's Campaign for Change
When John asked Sarah to be his running mate,
She did not blink, she did not wait.
Did Sarah so charm John McCain
That he failed to think and think again?
A presidential hopeful, old and sick,
Needed to make a smarter pick.
Sarah's rise to fame was rapid;
She's better dressed, but no less vapid.
The GOP has, thus, become
The party of the confused and dumb.
For a lot less chaos and a lot less drama:
Vote for Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Your so LAME,You probley think this blog is about you... don't you?
Love,TaiwanBrown.com
was a part of the most moving experience I've ever had, besides skydiving. It was a perfect day for skydiving, blue skies and puffy white clouds; however, I attended the Obama rally in St. Louis at the Gateway Arch. The Arch itself is an inspiring place to be...just amazing how it was built and the history behind it. This was a very historical moment and I was able to be a part of it. I was also close enough and got to shake Senator Barack Obama's hand, our next POTUS, and something I will never forget. You could feel the true spirit of the man and his desire to serve the people surrounding him. This wasn't phony, it was a soft but firm grip of a caring man. He and Joe Biden have a huge task before them, cleaning up the mess George W. Bush will leave behind.
As for John McCain and Sara Palin's tactics with 16 days to the election, I feel it's fitting to say:
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Please encourage everyone you know to vote. We must elect Obama/Biden, this country's only chance for unity and change!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osj4PEI-ELQ
A film by Anthony Gatto and Jim Slonina. Sound engineering by MironRaf.com. A group of artists and circus performers come together in speak their mind and represent their support for Barack Obama. Featuring visual artist Robin Barcus-Slonina, Guinness World Record-holding juggler Anthony Gatto, dancer Danielle Gatto, musician Jim Lutz, contortionist Natasha Patterson, Broadway star Cinda RamSeur, and actor/clown Jim Slonina.
S - I - M - P - L - E
DEREGULATION sank Wall Street and our economy.
DEREGULATION has been the exclusive battle cry of REPUBLICANS.
REPUBLICAN DEREGULATION caused our current economic pain.
PRIVATIZATION has stripped and gutted our safety nets.
PRIVATIZATION is an exclusive mantra of REPUBLICANS.
REPUBLICAN PRIVATIZATION is why you can't afford to falter anymore.
* - * - * - *
THE TRUTH IS SIMPLE.
SIMPLE MAKES POWERFUL SOUND-BITES.
MAKE THIS SHORT & SWEET MESSAGE HEARD.
DRIVE IT HOME to every voter you can reach.
M - O - R - E
Privatize means you introduce profit. The point of profit is to give as little as possible for as much as possible. So privatized public services get gutted.
McSame wants to privatize Social Security. Just like Bush. Can you IMAGINE if your Social Security retirement funds had been invested in the stock market as a result of privatization?
McBush has been consistently public about pressing for deregulation, getting government oversight out of the way of business. Well, they got their wish. Pretty scary results, right?
Democrats have always fundamentally believed in regulation of public services, and social safety nets. Democrats CREATED Social Security, and the Minimum Wage. Democratic bedrocks. How much more do you need to know?
The biggest bankruptcy crisis, is that of McBush and Palin's sorry souls.
You want change? Make sure people understand and remember all the years of Republican ranting for deregulation. McCrusty wants to deregulate health care too. He's on record, up till only a month or so ago, touting himself as a deregulator. In fact, think back a couple months. McSame was consistently all about "experience", frequently agreeing with George Bush, sometimes praising him, and voting with him literally over 90% of the time. Bush's popularity and the economy tanked badly. Barack's consistent message of change whooped McSame's message of experience at every turn. So now, in the eleventh hour, SURPRISE! McBush is ALL ABOUT change. Again, how much more do you need to know?
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=12342127
AS THE financial crisis pushes the economy back to the top of voters’ concerns, Barack Obama is starting to open up a clear lead over John McCain in the opinion polls. But among those who study economics for a living, Mr Obama’s lead is much more commanding. A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds the majority—at times by overwhelming margins—believe Mr Obama has the superior economic plan, a firmer grasp of economics and will appoint better economic advisers.
Our survey is not, by any means, a scientific poll of all economists. We e-mailed a questionnaire to 683 research associates, all we could track down, of the National Bureau of Economic Research, America’s premier association of applied academic economists, though the NBER itself played no role in the survey. A total of 142 responded, of whom 46% identified themselves as Democrats, 10% as Republicans and 44% as neither. This skewed party breakdown may reflect academia’s Democratic tilt, or possibly Democrats’ greater propensity to respond. Still, even if we exclude respondents with a party identification, Mr Obama retains a strong edge—though the McCain campaign should be buoyed by the fact that 530 economists have signed a statement endorsing his plans.
Does their opinion matter? Economics is just one of the many things the next president will have to worry about; voters still seem to prefer Mr McCain on foreign policy. And even on the economy, economists may not have the same priorities as the population at large. Arguably, what a president says about economics on the campaign trail is less important than how he responds to the unexpected challenges that inevitably arise once he is in office.
Yet economists’ opinions should count for something because irrespective of any party affiliation, most of them approach policy decisions with the same basic tool kit. Their assessment of the candidates’ economic credentials and plans represents an informed judgment on how well they will handle difficult trade-offs between efficiency, equity, growth and consensus-building.
Regardless of party affiliation, our respondents generally agree the economy is in bad shape, that the election is important to the course of economic policy and that the housing and financial crisis is the most critical economic issue facing America.
The detailed responses are bad news for Mr McCain (the full data are available here). Eighty per cent of respondents and no fewer than 71% of those who do not cleave to either main party say Mr Obama has a better grasp of economics. Even among Republicans Mr Obama has the edge: 46% versus 23% say Mr Obama has the better grasp of the subject. “I take McCain’s word on this one,” comments James Harrigan at the University of Virginia, a reference to Mr McCain’s infamous confession that he does not know as much about economics as he should. In fairness, Mr McCain’s lower grade may in part reflect greater candour about his weaknesses. Mr Obama’s more tightly managed image leaves fewer opportunities for such unvarnished introspection.
A candidate’s economic expertise may matter rather less if he surrounds himself with clever advisers. Unfortunately for Mr McCain, 81% of all respondents reckon Mr Obama is more likely to do that; among unaffiliated respondents, 71% say so. That is despite praise across party lines for the excellent Doug Holtz-Eakin, Mr McCain’s most prominent economic adviser and a former head of the Congressional Budget Office. “Although I have tended to vote Republican,” one reply says, “the Democrats have a deep pool of talented, moderate economists.”
There is an apparent contradiction between most economists’ support for free trade, low taxes and less intervention in the market and the low marks many give to Mr McCain, who is generally more supportive of those things than Mr Obama. It probably reflects a perception that the Republican Party under George Bush has subverted many of those ideals for ideology and political gain. Indeed, the majority of respondents rate Mr Bush’s economic record as very bad, and Republican respondents are only slightly less critical.
“John McCain has professed disdain for ‘so-called economists’, and for some the feeling has become mutual,” says Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. “Obama’s team is mainstream and non-ideological but extremely talented.”
On our one-to-five scale, economists on average give Mr Obama’s economic programme a 3.3 and Mr McCain’s a 2.2. Mr Obama, says Jonathan Parker, a non-aligned professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, “is a pragmatist not an ideologue. I expect Clintonian economic policies.” If, that is, crushing federal debt does not derail his taxing and spending plans.
On his plans to fix the financial crisis, Mr Obama averages 3.1, a point higher than Mr McCain. Still, some said they didn’t quite know what they were rating—reasonably enough, since neither candidate has produced clear plans of his own.
Where the candidates’ positions are more clearly articulated, Mr Obama scores better on nearly every issue: promoting fiscal discipline, energy policy, reducing the number of people without health insurance, controlling health-care costs, reforming financial regulation and boosting long-run economic growth. Twice as many economists think Mr McCain’s plan would be bad or very bad for long-run growth as Mr Obama’s. Given how much focus Mr McCain has put on his plan’s benefits for growth, this last is quite a repudiation.
Mr McCain gets his highest mark, an average of 3.5 and a clear advantage over Mr Obama, for his position on free trade and globalisation. If Mr Obama “would wake up on free trade”, one respondent says, “I could get behind the plans much more.” Perhaps surprisingly, the economists rated trade low in priority compared with the other issues listed. Only 53% say it is important or very important. Neither candidate scored at all well on dealing with the burgeoning cost of entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security.
The economists also prefer Mr Obama’s tax plans. Republicans and respondents who do not identify with either political party see Mr McCain’s tax policies as more efficient but less equitable. But the former prefer Mr McCain’s plans—43% of Republicans say they are good or very good—and the latter Mr Obama’s. Of non-affiliated respondents, 31% say Mr Obama’s are good or very good.
Either way, according to the economists, it would be difficult to do much worse than George Bush. The respondents give Mr Bush a dismal average of 1.7 on our five-point scale for his economic management. Eighty-two per cent thought Mr Bush’s record was bad or very bad; only 1% thought it was very good.
The Democrats were overwhelmingly negative, but nearly every respondent viewed Mr Bush’s record unfavourably. Half of Republican respondents thought Mr Bush deserves only a 2. “The minimum rating of one severely overestimates the quality of Bush’s economic policies,” says one non-aligned economist.
My wife and I are quintessential, older, over-educated, internet-connected, Kool-aid drinking, “Yes we can”-chanting, Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Gonzales-Rice hating progressive voters, the type the right likes to characterize as “elitists” even though we have friends from many cultures at all levels of society and they(our right-wing critics) only commune with the wealthy and privileged. Beginning with the Super Tuesday primaries, we have hosted a series of TV watching parties that continued through the primaries, the Obama-Clinton debates and the Democratic convention. We publicized the events through my.barackobama.com and by direct invitations to like- minded friends. Every get-together has been a delightful and stimulating experience where diverse people, many of whom we met for the first time when they knocked on our door, joined us in uninhibited expressions of enthusiasm and hope for a better USA. Each party had its own unique flavor, determined by the mix of people who happened to attend. We had several repeat visitors and many new faces on every occasion. The debate last night between Barack Obama and John McCain was our first opportunity in a month to host a gathering on a major occasion in the Fall campaign. Following our usual procedure, we put up a notice on my.bo.com. With a limit of 25 people listed, a steady rate of people signing up built the number of online registrations to 12. Yesterday morning, I saw an email in my inbox from Amy, a neighbor in the next subdivision, who had noticed the Obama sign in our yard while walking down our street, read the event notice, figured out that the sign and the party belonged to the same household, and who wished to come to the party with her teenaged daughter. Amy mentioned that since the event was full, she would have to see us another time. I was surprised that we apparently had an influx of registrations at the last minute and I wrote Amy back asking her to come anyway and bring her daughter, too. Checking my event, I saw that someone had signed up with the intention of bringing 13 people, just enough to max out our party. That seemed odd, so I emailed the person and asked him to confirm the registration. Further checking of my inbox showed a letter from my.bo.com notifying me that someone had signed up for 10 or more spots at an event, triggering an automatic warning email. It dawned on me that the 13 person sign up was in all likelihood a dirty trick by a McCain operative to disrupt our event by preventing additional people from signing up! I deleted this person’s registration forthwith. Perhaps this little Karl Rove-style tactic was relatively minor; seemingly it had minimal impact on our party. My new friend, Amy, from a few blocks away came with daughter, Morgan, and most of the other people who signed up made it by the time the debate was underway. Did anyone else besides my neighbor try to register after the trickster maxed out our registration? Who can say? But, what is clear is that this tactic reflects a dishonest, dishonorable, mean-spirited mindset among those who oppose Barack Obama. The aim of the dirty trick was to keep Obama supporters from getting together for an evening of sharing. Why do this? Perhaps they are afraid we will all pitch in some money and send it to our candidate. If that’s it, they could save their effort- we don’t use our parties as fund raising vehicles. I suspect that the fraudulent sign-up claiming that 13 people wish to attend was intended merely to keep a few people from joining us for fun and friendship. Lovely, isn’t it?
I have a motto, “Always a student, never a victim.” If you can learn something from an experience, then it wasn’t a failure or a defeat. Therefore, when I list our “Watch Sen. Biden put Sarah Palin back in the box where she belongs” debate watching party for next week, I’ll make the registration limit 50 people. Anyone signing up for 38 spots at the event will definitely get my attention.
Owen Scott, III, Baton Rouge
This video that I compiled to accompany my original song chronicles what happens when voters are defrauded and votes are left on the table.
The title of the song is 'We Were Robbed! (The G.O.P.)'. It can be found here: We Were Robbed! (The G.O.P.)
We Were Robbed! (The G.O.P.)
The video for We Were Robbed! (The G.O.P.) serves as a reminder that the last 8 years have been run by an illegitimate administration that was thrust into power on the backs of 19000 eligible voters in Florida that were illegally removed from the voter rolls. This was conspired by Jeb Bush, Katherine Harris, Clayton Roberts, Karl Rove, and Database Technologies.
People, you have to get out and vote on November 4 en masse and don't let it be close this time.
The Bush Legacy:Disenfranchisement, 9/11, Enron, Worldcom, Bear Stearns, Countrywide, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, AIG Restructuring, An Iraq War that still has not been Justified after 5+ years, $4 gasoline, Patriot Act, Record Foreclosures, Rising Unemployment, Illegal Surveillance, Tax Payer funded bailouts for Mortgage Companies, Patriot Act. By the way, I have not heard of any bailouts for taxpayers struggling to pay their mortgages.
It's time to say Eight is Enough!We Were Robbed!
If you dig the video, please feel free to distribute freely to anyone you feel needs to get the message or post it to own your websites, emails, and blogs supporting Senator (and Future President) Obama. At the conclusion of this post I will post the embed code and URL for your personal websites, blogs and emails.
Please distribute freely if you believe in the message. I welcome your feedback.
Respectfully,
Uncle NateObama/Biden '08
Here is the embed code for your personal websites/blogs:
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wFerpq2VApg&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wFerpq2VApg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Here is the link for your email:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFerpq2VApg
The McCain campaign has decided that the New York Times is not real journalism. The stinging article below may be why...
Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.
Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.
But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.
Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.
“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.
Mr. Davis’s role with the group has bubbled up as an issue in the campaign, but the extent of his compensation and the details of his role have not been reported previously.
Mr. McCain was never a leading critic or defender of the mortgage giants, although several former executives of the companies said Mr. Davis did draw Mr. McCain to a 2004 awards banquet that the companies’ Homeownership Alliance held in a Senate office building. The organization printed a photograph of Mr. McCain at the event in its 2004 annual report, bolstering its clout and credibility. The event honored several other elected officials, including at least two Democrats, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama.
In an interview Sunday night with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain noted that Mr. Davis was no longer working on behalf of the mortgage giants. He said Mr. Davis “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”
Asked about the reports of Mr. Davis’s role, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that during the time when Mr. Davis ran the Homeownership Alliance, the senator had backed legislation to increase oversight of the mortgage companies’ accounting and executive compensation. The legislation, however, did not seek to change their anomalous structure as private companies with federal support.
The spokesman, Tucker Bounds, also noted that the Homeownership Alliance included nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Urban League. “It’s not controversial to promote homeownership and minority homeownership,” Mr. Bounds said. More than a half-dozen current and former executives, however, said the Homeownership Alliance was set up mainly to defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by promoting their role in the housing market, and the two companies paid almost the entire cost of the group’s operations.
“They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie,” said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. “We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis.” Mr. Maloni added, “Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good.” (Several executives said Mr. Davis’s compensation was not unusual for the companies’ well-connected consultants.)
The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.
At the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recruited Mr. Davis to run the Homeownership Alliance in 2000, they were under new pressure from private industry rivals and deregulation-minded Republicans who argued that the two companies’ federal sponsorship gave them an unfair advantage and put taxpayers at risk. Critics of the companies had formed their own Washington-based advocacy group, FM Watch. They were pushing for regulations that would deter the companies from expanding into new areas, including riskier and more profitable mortgages.
Mr. Davis had recently returned to his lobbying firm from running Mr. McCain’s unexpectedly strong 2000 Republican primary campaign, which elevated Mr. McCain’s profile as a legislator and Mr. Davis’s as a lobbyist.
“You can say what you want about free-market distortions, but people like the system because it gets them into houses cheap,” Mr. Davis said to Institutional Investor magazine in 2000, adding that he would run the advocacy group out of his Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm.
The organization also hired Public Strategies, a communications firm that included former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. Mr. Davis wrote letters and gave speeches for the group. In April 2001, he sent out a press release headlined, “It’s Tax Day — Do You Know Where Your Deductions Are? For Most Americans, They’re in Your Home.”
But by the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were recovering from accounting problems and re-examining costs, former executives said. The companies decided the Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it disappeared.
John Harwood contributed reporting.
